Does the responsibility of having children warrant state regulation? Craig Playstead is one of many who think it’s reasonable.
You need a license to drive a car, pull a fish out of a lake, and marry a stripper in Vegas, but any jackass can bring a life into this world. We see the downside of this nightly on reality TV, YouTube, and in our schools.
Bad parenting is killing our country. It’s worse than drugs, corrupt lending, Wall Street crooks, and a flexible legal system. And it raises the question:
Should parents need a license to have kids?
The blog over at Freakonomics actually put up a poll asking their readers if they think parents should have to get a license to have kids. Only 6% of those who voted thought it was a terrible idea. Six. But more on that later.
Now, there’s the whole “it’s my right as a human being to reproduce” argument to counter the question, and it’s tough to fight biology. But no one is out there watching bad parents, punishing them, or educating them. We choose to put insane amounts of money into things like presidential campaigns instead.
I’m not sure having a license is the answer, but it sure sheds light on the fact that bad parenting is killing this country as much as reckless spending and no accountability. It sucks money out of schools and churches, cripples our judicial system, and sends innocent kids to the streets to fend for themselves. Yet not one presidential candidate has ever mentioned a word about it.
The Freakonomics post was also interesting because 60% of the people who voted thought it was a good idea, but impossible to implement, and another 32% thought it was something that should be done. So that basically means than 92% of people who voted think that parents should need a license. People who read Freakonomics aren’t uneducated either.
What do you think? Should parents need a license to have kids?
—Photo mdanys/Flickr
Children are the most important entity in the world. I am a pediatrician and have seen a lot of child abuse mostly stemming from irresponsible parenting. It seems to be a step in the right direction to have certain requirements to procreate aside from having a penis and a vagina.
Totally agree on a license. Why should someone else pay for YOU to have a child? What gives that right? Abolish welfare for the lazy ass people who refuse to work. In no way should you have any rights, when you as human refuse to contribute. The world would be so much better without the cesspool left behind by leeches.
i agree i think it is ruining society bad parenting includes asult like raping physical asult also. and we should now start going through tests before we get children
Im a kid doing a project on this and i agree that people should have license to have kids. The question is why isnt it. There’s alot of kids that was raised wrong and now there the reason why bad stuff happen and they will teach that to there kids but if they have license to have kids they wouldnt have gotten one because they are not responsible for one
Wow seriously. You have 3 of your own offspring and you believe you, yourself, are mentally ok by saying to pass a law that prohibits others freedom of choice in having a child because you and others believe themselves are good enough and all others should be good enough like you and them?
If only people would actually focus on their own responsibilities and stop trying to control others this world would be a bit less messy.
Besides, Control is a figment of the imagination. Besides, its absurd and barbaric to pass such a law!
Absolutely. But you can’t stop there. People have to be unable to have kids without a license. Not just prohibited.
You are correct Sir. Pass the law… When any baby in the US is born after, they are surgically fixed. Once they are of age, can pass a mental health test and have a income that will support the child, they receive a license and are “un-fixed”. The cost of the surgery can be picked up by the tax payers, as it will solve most of our economic and social problems going forward. It is cheaper to pay for the surgeries, than to pay for welfare and watch these poor children go through hell!
My daughter Leila was doing her “persuasive piece” on this topic. I thought that parents should have a license to reproduce. Yes, I’m married.
The world is over populated with children that were conceived by irresponsible parents. I know several teenage and young adult mothers, who can’t take care of their children. They want freedom to live up there life and don’t think of their consquences. One mother I know is pregnant with her ninth child and it will be taken away by the ministry of social services like the rest of her children because she has mental disibilities. Why must these mothers be allow to keep having children? She is just one out of a million that populate the world with children. Now… Read more »
Penalty schmenalty. The main problem in Australia concerning children is junkies (or similarly neglectful persons) giving birth and then not caring for their children. They are given benefits because they do not work, and these benefits increase with each child born. So they just keep having children, buying flatscreen televisions with the money, and ignoring the needs of the children. The taxpayer funds this unending cycle. What we need is a way to deter these incompetent people from wanting to have children in the first place. Even junkies aside, there are plenty of teenage girls in this country who are… Read more »
Considering the amount of neglect and abuse of children, particularly due to parents having been subjected to the same treatment themselves, it is difficult to know what to do regarding this dichotomy. It is a generational thing. The parents have unresolved conflicts regarding the abuse or neglect they suffered at the hands of their own parents or ‘care givers’ which they then take out on their children. It may also be due to the astronomical amount of stress, emotional upheaval, immaturity, ignorance, poverty and lack of family support. It is true that some parents are able to transcend the horrors… Read more »
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Procreation isn’t a right. It’s a responsibility. I was going to say more, but that’s really it, and that’s how it needs to be handled.
You guys have half the states (or more) banning people of the same sex from *marrying*, and yet you advocate that the same states should regulate who can have children? Taking the ability to enforce a narrow-narrow normative family structure to a whole new level, are we?
If any government had ever demonstrated a capacity to actually implement a program like this without enormous unexpected consequences I would possibly consider supporting this. Nazi eugenics, China’s One Child (mass selective abortion of females), etc. I could just imagine the implications here: Hmm, this district needs more of X racial representation, loosen requirements because of a projected need for a larger tax base in 30 years. While I realize it wasn’t the topic of this article, the real issue with today’s young adults and children is fatherless households.
It’s a great idea on so many levels. First, here are way too many people on the planet and people keep cranking out new ones. It’s awful. We have to do something to stop this population explosion. Second, I’m tired of being expected to compensate for other people’s parental shortcomings with my own money and time. YOU have the kids, YOU pay for and deal with them. That would be so amazing in my opinion. Licensing would go a long way to correcting the misery we find ourselves in now. Many of our planet’s problems would be completely resolved if… Read more »
I’m just curious, for all the people who support this, what do you propose will be the requirements to get a parenting license, and how will the government effectively issue them? I ask this because I really want to know who has the authority to tell others they can’t do something that’s basic biology. And what would the punishment be for someone who happens to get pregnant? Forced abortions? Taking the child away and put into foster care or the adoption system? Do people even think practically anymore? Let’s not also forget licensing is a joke in itself. Pretty much… Read more »
I love all the discussion on this topic. My thoughts when writing the post was that; of course this is never going to happen. But it should shed some light on the fact that parenting is so bad in many cases that 92% of the people who took that poll actually believe the government should step in. And in many cases they should. They should step in when people can’t take care of themselves (i.e. kids), not when they won’t take care of themselves. It’s an epidemic that need attention. Maybe not a license, but additional support and education.
Playstead: “But it should shed some light on the fact that parenting is so bad in many cases that 92% of the people who took that poll actually believe the government should step in.”
No, it does not shed light on the “fact” that parenting is so bad. It suggests that 92% hold that opinion.
The really scary thing about it is that 92% of respondents believe that the government has ANY place in this area. The government should play a much smaller role than it already does.
-Jut
Sorry, but 92% of people are either total idiots or not thinking clearly. When the government can control what you can and can’t do with your own body, that’s bad. And if you think about it, you’re pre-judging someone based on something that haven’t even done wrong yet. That’s not fair and it’s not right. Saying there should be a license to have kids is a knee-jerk reaction and an irrational (and completely unrealistic) way to tackle the problem. You can’t legislate common sense. And while things like criminal history and past actions can often predict what kind of parent… Read more »
Great idea, yes. I actually wanted to write a screenplay about parent licensing, but my husband convinced me it would have to end with licensing being a BAD idea in order for it to sell, and that’s not the direction I want to take it. I might still try, but it would mean suspending all disbelief, because the inevitable outcome of such legislation is that government entities would take it too far and precedents would invariably be set that unfairly restrict certain “types” of people from having kids.
Actually, it’s more likely that governments end up trying to force/encourage people to -have- kids, which is what’s happening in China now, because of the demographics issue (which is a lot better issue to have than eleventy billion more people to deal with). Anyway, even in China, “minorities” were given special permissions, if anything. Nothing will restrict personal liberties on both the legal and practical fronts faster or more completely than overpopulation, especially if a large part of that population has health issues.
I think that they should require parenting classes in high school curriculum and expand the sex ed program. That would be the most easiest and smartest way. So that kids who grew up with bad parents know that that’s not how it should be and that they would have the tools to stop the cycle when they have kids. People, who object, can of course have their kids opt out and deal with those problems later. But I think have an education about parenting, what it entails, and what children need emotionally and physically, would help rebuild America and makes… Read more »
Oh, sweethearts, this is so AWKWARD.
I’ll just say it right out, I guess.
1984 was a WARNING what NOT to do- not an instruction manual.
You poor dears. You must be so embarrassed! Don’t feel too bad. It seems to be a common mistake these days.
Anonymous, the very idea of licenses to parent is, in my view, a liberal idea. Its part of the utopian idea that we can perfect the human species. Fact is, we can’t. Not gonna happen. Human nature is what it is, deal with it accordingly. Licensing parents is not the way to go. Both because of those being licensed and because of those doing the licensing. It’s just a bad, bad, bad idea. Real bad. A huge stinker.
Leave it be.
The Wet One
I am very politically liberal, but I TOTALLY agree with the idea of the government requiring a license for people to have children. In the utopia that exists solely in my head, every baby born would be safely, painlessly and reversibly sterilized at birth (maybe a tiny IUD for girls and some kind of reversible tubal ligation/block for boys?). Parents would be able to opt out of sterilizing their child, but the child and parents would then be ineligible for a myriad of AWESOME social programs like free/reduced higher education, participation in a universal healthcare plan, various (and LARGE) tax… Read more »
Parents would be able to opt out of sterilizing their child, but the child and parents would then be ineligible for a myriad of AWESOME social programs like free/reduced higher education, participation in a universal healthcare plan, various (and LARGE) tax credits/deductions and free academic enrichment programs like Head-Start programs, free daycare, science/music/sports summer camps etc … Pretty much all conservatives I know, would opt out. Most of them don’t use ANY of these things. Most of them don’t regard these social programs as “AWESOME” at all, or even slightly useful. Some of them make large economic sacrifices to AVOID… Read more »
dont you think that that would be a bit much for a person to go through, just to have a child? i mean jesus that could take a few weeks.
dear anonymous,
have you forgotten that we live in America? This is still the land of the free. I believe that many nay all of the policies that you wish to institute are very impractical and unconstitutional. The government cannot control how we are supposed to live and dictate our lives. Isn’t that the exact thing that the forefathers tried to get away from? Just something for you to think about
The only way I see that working is if there were “installable” methods of contraception which were at least as normalized as circumcisions currently are. Then, there could be a license to get it removed and thus reproduce. Likely? If only.
Consider this, what will be the penalty for having a child without a license? Take the child away? Forced contraception? It only gets worse the more you think about it. How about jail time or a big fine? Some of the absurdity of the idea comes in this area. Some of the maliciousness of our good intentions becomes quite clear here too. Are we going to punish foolish youngsters whose hormones are flowing at full tilt (while their brains are not) for breaching the “license to parent law”? Are we going to take the youngsters children away? Is that because… Read more »
I have thought about it…. And then I look at my older sister who has been a meth addict since she was 15. She’s been pregnant 4 times by 3 different dealers… The first baby died in the womb from my sister overdosing. The second baby she aborted because one day she decided she didn’t want to be pregnant anymore…. We had bought things for this little girl to be born and then she was gone. The other two are now my younger brothers because my parents couldn’t see their grandchildren go into foster care. They both turned out relatively… Read more »
If we regulate births, as they do in every other country,
What other countries do this beside China (and, more covertly, India)? Seriously… most countries do NOT regulate births.
That’s a great idea but the fault is not solely on the women, men should be placed under mandatory birth
control as well that way no one can be to blame for the baby.